


who could've thought forever could be severed

by Katyuana



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Blood, Child Death, Gen, Grief, Grief/Mourning, Mourning, Short Story, War, lots of death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-25 05:02:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6181312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katyuana/pseuds/Katyuana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>War takes everything and leaves broken pieces of lives behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	who could've thought forever could be severed

**Author's Note:**

> (Warning: this is really dark and it's short yeah but I wrote this when I was in a bad place mentally so be prepared for some emotional shit okay?)

He's so small. He's too small. The little child is too small and still. He should be jumping and laughing and smiling. No. He's lying in his mother's arms, too quiet and still. The dark hair is plastered to his forehead, soaked with blood and speckled with dirt. The beautiful child's eyes are glassy and unseeing. His ashen, cold little face is dirty and the cheeks are not flushed with young blood. His mother is crying, hugging the child to her chest. The blood is sticking to her bosom, but she can not bring herself to care. Later, she will scrub her skin until it's as red as the blood that once stained it, but she will always feel the cold cold blood on her chest, staining it horribly. It's her baby's, her child lies dead, hardly seeing his fifth winter. The father is on his knees. His face is buried in his hands and his shoulders shake, but there are no tears. Just hitching breaths and gasps of air. They found their baby's body in the snow and, hoping against hope, hoping that perhaps the bloody throat was just a scratch or just a bump on the head, that they would see their child's eyes blink and live again if only they warmed him up, brought him home and when the tiny heart never beat again, they mourned.

The cause of death... War. Isn't that the curse of ages? In times of peace, sons bury their fathers; in times of war, fathers bury their sons. But don't they get some time with them, before they must leave? Surely, fathers must bury their reckless children who carry toy guns into battle and fall when their youth fails them. Fathers do not bury their happy babies who giggle when they are kissed by their father's scruff and hug their mothers unabashedly when she asks. 

A soldier did this, a dead-inside, seen untold horrors of humans soldier, a soldier slit his child's throat mercilessly, a soldier left his child's body out in the cold, while his parents worried themselves sick, every nightmare they had coming true the instant they saw a tiny form collapsed in the snow. Not a child soldier. No naive young man could kill a young child, in cold blood, just because the child was born on the other side of the war. No, a monster in man's skin, a human beast, did this. Killed his precious little baby, who loved his mother's dolls and colorful flowers and accidentally squeezed the fruit just a little too hard so that they bruised. 

The mother holds her baby tighter, head bowing. The tiny, tiny body is cold. It's too cold, she thinks. Shouldn't her baby be warm? Wrapped up in blankets, to stay warm in the chilly winter. His fifth winter, she remembers he was so excited about it. Presents, he'd cheered, holding up the small coins they'd gifted him. He was going to buy a new doll for her. He'd been giggling over the little thing, holding it tenderly, trying to hide it when they visited the toy store, He hasn't bought it yet. Saving up. 

The mother grabs the blankets closest to her, trying to wrap her baby up before the chill got to him. The father is unresponsive, he doesn't notice. She swaddles him, cupping a hand to his cold cheeks. She looked into his eyes, his beautiful heart-breaker eyes. He'd gotten them from her, the swirling light colors unique. It's such a contrast to their dark skin. And they are so glassy, _so dead_ , that the mother remembers. And she wails, holding the child's cold body so close to her that she feels like she's trying get him back, breathe life into him like when she carried him inside her, how she carried life for the first time. And she speaks. "Ba-b-baby, baby, wake up, you're scaring me now. This... This isn't a game, now, wake up, baby," she sobs, lightly shaking her baby. 

The father is standing up, and he's already dying on the inside, he's getting cold. He's cold, he is a winter storm. Wild and turbulent, liable to break any at moment. He's so cold, but he's alive. His soul still lives, not stolen away by Death's fingers. A living death, he's lost his baby, his little child of light and laughter. His wife, a beautiful young woman, is turning old with grief. Lines crave themselves into her face, marking her as time drags her down. The father is dying on the inside, whilst the mother dies outside. Each grieving, for the tiny baby they cooed over, for whom they made clothes, plans for the future, games, and for whom they lost, to the wretched war. Their child is a footnote of casualties, one of too many children slaughtered. But to them, they know that this will always be there. Their child is a not a number, mentioned briefly in tales and books. Their child was a person, one who had a bright future of happiness and love and deserved so much more than what he got.


End file.
